Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, based on the novel by Jonathan Foer, is a story which tells the tale of the aftermath of the event from the point of view of a child. He is old enough to be aware of what happened, smart enough to comprehend what he has lost but not of the emotional nor psychological maturity to compute how to deal with it. Perhaps the point of the movie was to prove that there really is no way to deal with loss.

Make no mistake about it, just because Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks' names may be on the movie posters to drum up interest does not mean they matter in this movie. The star of the show is the talented young newcomer Thomas Horn as Oskar Schell. Oskar's father Thomas (Tom Hanks) was in one of the towers when the plane hit.

Perhaps he jumped out of the building to a gravitational death or perhaps he was crushed when the tower crumbled. No matter how many theories Oskar has about his father's death, the fact of the matter is that his father is gone. Oskar's mother Linda (Sandra Bullock) can barely come to terms with the loss let alone make sense of it to her son. He has questions which she cannot answer and this inability creates a dysfunctional space of emotional silence between them.

Oskar fills the void by hunting down a lock to a key he stumbles upon among his father's effects. He believes that behind the lock is a message for him from his departed father. His investigation uncovers story after story from individuals of different races, ages, creeds and religions but no locks to which the key fits.

The movie is more about the journey to find a single answer which uncovers grander answers to questions unfathomed. Oskar meets a deaf old man, a widow, a mother of five, a recently divorced woman, her recently divorced husband, and even his own estranged grandfather. Each and every one of them has a gripping story to tell but none of them can offer him an answer to the one question which led him to them in the first place.

However, he eventually does find the lock to which the key belongs, but that is one I will let you unlock for yourself.
Besides proving that the child's future as a career journalist has already been cast in stone, this movie is worthy of the words "emotional rollercoaster".

In many of the scenes I found myself wanting to jump at the screen and give some of the characters a hug, mostly for me, but who's keeping score? The story is well told in a linear format with occasional flashbacks so that the theme is fully understood. Even though the father character is lost at the beginning of the movie, the audience gains an intimate relationship with him through his son's memories.

Director Stephen Daldry does an excellent job of merging intricate stories with amazing cinematography for a tale which will touch the emotional centers of most of the audience.
This movie review was made possible by Starflix Cinemas Prestige Plaza, Ngong Rd, Nairobi, Kenya.

By Andrew Onyango